Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Nollywood Actor Solomon Akiyesi Tells Own Story

You all remember Nollywood actor Solomon Akiyesi, whose secret wedding to mistress Uloma, was disrupted by his wife Lilian on Saturday April 13 2013? Then it was revealed that he had another wife called Ezinne. If you missed the saga read them here, here, here, and here. He has finally opened up to tell his own side of the story to the good people of Nigeria and his fans.

Read below his story as published by Daily Sun...

•I loved Ezinne, my first wife, but she was deceitful, greedy
• If I hadn’t left Lillian, my second wife, I would have committed suicide
• Uloma gives me true love, inner joy. Continue.....

On Saturday, April 13, Nigerians were shocked when the supposed
wedding of Nollywood actor, Mr. Solomon Akiyesi, to Ms Uloma Agwu,
turned into a major scandal in Lagos.

The ‘wedding’, which was taking place at the Overcomer’s World
Outreach in Aguda, Surulere, was truncated when Solomon’s authentic
wife, Lillian, stormed the church with some family members, creating a
scene and accusing the groom-to-be of abandoning her at home in Port
Harcourt while he was busy, plotting an illegal wedding in Lagos.

It took the intervention of policemen to restore sanity. The wedding
was eventually cancelled by the General Overseer of the Overcomers
Church World Outreach, Bishop N.E. Moses.
Since then, many Nigerians have taken to the social media, raining
unprintable invectives on the Nollywood actor, who was said to have been
married twice before his latest failed attempt. In a chat with Daily
Sun, Solomon tells his own story, explaining why he decided to take the
actions that he took, concerning his marital life.

Excerpts: Over the
last one week, hell has been let loose on me.
I’ve not only suffered verbal attacks, but also vituperations and
near fisticuffs, all because of another futile attempt of mine at my
journey towards achieving that which I honestly and passionately desire –
a peaceful home and family. Social network sites and blogs have been
awash with how I left Lilian, my “pregnant” wife, to marry Uloma, my
Lagos “mistress” whom they also claimed was pregnant for me. Nothing can
be farther from the truth.

Only a mad or cursed man would simply leave his pregnant wife and
elope with another one. And lest I forget, I urge you, as you read this,
to have an open mind to listen to that which is true instead of taking
sides and jumping into wicked conclusions with its attendant wicked
insults and uncouth commentaries about how Solomon is running his life
and how he is not. I’m not asking for pity or trying to buy anybody’s
love at this time.

This is my life. If at my age I don’t know what I want, then I may
just remain the dumb ass that I’ve been called over and over again. I
don’t think I need anyone to give me any lecturing on how I should
exercise my privileges.

For the record, I never planned on marrying more than one wife. And
unlike the serial husband I’ve been labelled, I had dreamt and planned a
lovely home and family.
And my quest for this dates back to 2003 after I had moved into Port
Harcourt. I soon settled down with Ezinne, my university days
girlfriend, whom I ran into in Port Harcourt during her National Youth
Service. As fate had it, we couldn’t help reliving old times and one
thing led to another.

One fateful, rainy Thursday evening in October,
2002, Ezinne came to inform me that she was pregnant.
It was as far as I was concerned, a devastating blow to the new life I
was living; rap music, cars, money and women. So, I told her the
pregnancy was unacceptable to me. Besides, I only just started working
and needed stability. But months later, Ezinne was to inform me that she
was carrying a baby girl.
And knowing my attachment to baby girls and not wanting to ever have a
baby outside wedlock, I repented and changed my thuggish ways and asked
her to marry me, more so that I was mature enough in every
ramification. Or so I thought.

And so, sometime in April, 2003, I hired a hall and invited a pastor
to come officiate at my marriage with Ezinne and bless our rings. All
done, we went home and started as husband and wife. God, the creator,
knew how glad I was and looked forward to a happy home. However, five
days after that marriage, I called my new wife on my way from work to
ask what was up for dinner and she told me she had been in the hospital.

I rushed to the hospital and was told by Ezinne that she lost the
baby. I got her discharged and took her home. But I was completely
broken at the loss of a baby I had expected so much. Four days later, I
asked my wife if she actually saw the dead baby. She responded by saying
the doctor brought it but she gave instruction for it to be buried
because she could not behold the sight. Instinctively, I called the
doctor – both to thank him and to confirm because he wasn’t around when I
went to pick her home. After thanking the doctor, I asked of the sex of
my dead baby.

The doctor didn’t talk for like six seconds. I asked him the same
question again and he said he’s been restless in his spirit and that he
could no longer keep the fact that there was no baby inside Ezinne and
that nothing like miscarriage happened in his hospital. I challenged him
again and asked if he was not the same person, who confirmed her
pregnant and that Ezinne had been attending antenatal in his hospital.

He responded that he had not set his eyes on Ezinne since October of
the previous year. Meanwhile, Ezinne had always taken money from me for
antenatal and had even shopped for the baby! It then became clear to me
that this was a fluke all together.

Sadly enough, Ezinne denied any wrongdoing. For three years, I
exposed opportunities for Ezinne to simply tell me the truth but she
never took advantage of any of the opportunities. Alas! She was not
pregnant. I decided to investigate myself and took her for HSG where it
was discovered that there were no fallopian tubes in her and that there
was evidence of previous surgery of the uterus. I independently probed
further and found out with evidence that Ezinne had a life-threatening
abortion in 1992 that resulted in the rupture and subsequent removal of
her womb and tubes.

My biggest pain was not what I found out but the fact that Ezinne hid
all this from me all these years and was still being economical with
the truth even when confronted with hard evidence! In frustration, I
moved out of the house but not before taking her to her mum in search of
the truth.

Even the mum corroborated what Ezinne gave as excuse for the scar
that runs from her navel down to her pubic region, i.e. she was operated
upon due to menstrual irregularities. I then decided to stay out for
good. While I was out, my relationship with Lillian whom I had known
years earlier grew.

I was always going to see her in Enugu. I then got me another
apartment and Lillian came around quite often too. Gradually Lillian
grew from that little girl I was merely helping in her schooling, into a
mature, witty and intelligent young woman. So, having taken my people
to Ezinne’s place for the dissolution of the marriage – since we did
only traditional marriage – I proposed to Lillian.

And, in 2007, we proceeded to the registry for marriage. And that was
the day her father started troubling me. He insisted Lillian was not
supposed to go home with me. For two years, he cut communication with
me. Shortly after the marriage, my businesses ran into a crises and my
entire life nose-dived.

There was tremendous loss in my finances. In my travail, Lillian’s
father went to the police and told them to deal seriously with me
because I was an “irresponsible son-in-law”. When the challenges kept
mounting and seeing my life was at risk after I was badly shot, I left
town to sojourn elsewhere. In 2010, I gradually re-emerged and we
started finding our footing again.

Even though I tried to settle down again, I found that the centre
could no longer hold, as Lillian had metamorphosed into a nag and had
acquired a fire tongue with which she talked me down and reigned curses
on me at any little provocation. There was no week we didn’t have a
major fight, whether I was home or not.

At some point, she became religious. And having found her way into
Winners Chapel, she suggested to me one day that it was necessary we
took our marriage to God since we hadn’t a proper wedding. She said her
church pastors were willing to help in blessing our marriage so there
could be a turnaround. To this, I obliged. She said she would love for
us to wear wedding costumes for the purpose of photographs. To this I
also consented. And so, to Winners Chapel we went and were blessed and
certificated.

But it was as if that blessing was what someone was waiting for
before they would blow the whistle that would usher me into the hall of
pain. Lillian became insatiable.

You would see tiny ingredients of marriage only when I could ensure
her comfort. Once Lillian’s comfort was compromised, she would lampoon
me and tell me my life history in graphic details and lecture me on what
Mr. A and B have done for their wives that I’m not able to do.

It’s even worse when I try to remind her of the recent past that I
laboured tenaciously to keep her happy. Once she told me that there was
nothing I had done in the past that anybody couldn’t have done. Imagine
sacrificing all you’ve got, including almost your life, for someone who
would tell you it’s no big deal and that any other person could have
done what you did. And then, suddenly, she wanted me to quit my acting
career or she would divorce me. My phones were always her best
companions at night. If she was not reading my texts, she was in my
facebook or BBM.

I had no peace. My best moment was whenever I had to leave home for
work. And after work I never wanted to go back home. On a trip back home
sometime ago, I was praying that my aircraft should crash and I die
instead of going home. Even when I was driving home, I was under strong
temptation to ram into oncoming vehicles instead of going home.

It was either that a long list of demand would be waiting for me or
an equally longer list of questions about whom I had been online with
and whom I had been calling and not calling.

Then on the side was a supposed father-in-law, who claimed he
regretted the marriage because he wasn’t getting anything from it and
that I only came to destroy the love that existed in their family before
the marriage. So, my joy knew no bounds when Lillian told me last year
that she was pregnant. For me, it was a good thing. Maybe the baby would
take her attention away from me at last. Then the heat started again. I
must provide N2 million for her to deliver her baby, even though she
knows my income and its source. When her pressure got to a head and to
avoid the same road I travelled with Ezinne, I took Lillian to a
gynaecologist. A scan was run on her and the result was declared before
the two of us that she was not pregnant.

This was after she told me that she had done an independent scan and
that she was carrying triplets! Even with the medical confirmation,
Lillian never stopped her push for N2 million and money for baby
shopping. I ended up suffering a partial stroke in January. Yet she
would wake me up at 2am to ask me of my plans to raise N2 million for
her, even while I was bedridden with stroke.

I knew then that I was going to die in that marriage and had to do
something about it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is about my life. If what
greeted the Internet and press was that I died, trying to please
Lillian and my marriage, people would still insult me and ask why I
didn’t take a walk. And taking a walk I tried to do but I did not do it
right.

I tried to skip due process to avoid hurting anyone. More so, I did
not have the political and emotional will to ask for divorce. Pray,
people, divorce is not like going to a grocery store where you go to pay
your money and come back with a bag full. What would have been my
ground for divorce? I should also confess that I could not find an
answer to what would happen to Lillian if I asked her to go because I
was more than a husband to her.

So, I foot-dragged to the point of taking the easy way out. And the
easy way is not usually the best way as I found out on Saturday, April
13.
Uloma did not just jump into the picture to “snatch” Solomon from
Lillian. Uloma has been my friend since 2006. We met again in 2009 at
the peak of my business crisis and have been seeing each other
afterwards. Candidly, I was swept away by the love, understanding and
the peaceful disposition Uloma proffered even as a friend, far from the
opposites I was getting back home. The way Uloma treated me was the
exact desires any man longed for in a wife. So, I was always running to
her whenever Lillian lit her fires.

So, I asked myself why I couldn’t marry her. Far from the evil rumour
that I wanted to marry Uloma because of her money, I wanted to marry
Uloma to fill a vacuum in her life and make her happy and fulfilled
because this woman with a heart of gold who has impacted many lives
deserved to be happy.
If that was what I could ever do to plant some comfort in her life.
If there was going to be any immediate gain for me, it would have been
peace of mind and its attendant long life, not her money or any physical
or material gains. I’m not a lazy man.

Apart from being an actor, I have been in business for almost fifteen
years. Years back, when I poured millions of naira on exotic cars and a
posh house in Port Harcourt, Uloma was a seventy thousand naira
recovery staff in Sterling Bank. Today, even if Uloma gave me all her
salary from where she presently works, it won’t be enough to put
Internet credit in my tablets and phones. Someone even posted that I
said I would have ‘hammered’ if I had married Uloma.

What could I possibly gain? Uloma wasn’t frustrated to the point of
desperation to pay a man to marry her. There was no award for anyone who
married her. She does not own an estate or anything willed to her by
anyone that I was running after. Uloma is not the daughter of any rich
man or top politician. She’s as much a hustler as I am.

Ok, yes, sincerely, maybe I actually would have ‘hammered’ long life,
happiness, inner joy, a sense of being loved and long life. I also
would have ‘hammered’ having her sisters as my sisters because they love
me like their own brother – a far cry from what my own people give me.

If I had married Uloma, I know I would have had a good burial
whenever I died because I’ve always been scared that at my level of
loneliness, whenever I die, my corpse would probably have decomposed
before my people would find me. I beg to be loved and appreciated.
Nobody to call my own.

No one ever cared about me. I have always been alone and hardworking
too. From way back, my joys, my sorrows I have always swallowed alone.
But Uloma was the only person who truly listened to my heart and
understood where I was coming from. So to say any of my failed marriages
was for money is simply stupid and unreasonable. The first car Ezinne
ever drove and financing for her first attempt at business all came from
me.

Lillian was not born with a silver spoon. Her father is only a
retired naval officer and the last time I checked he had no wealth
ascribed to his name. On her 18th birthday, I bought Lillian an exotic
Corolla car. At 300 level in school, I gave her a Mercedes Benz.

Then she graduated with an LS400 Lexus. This is apart from a lush
apartment and school bills that God used me to help her take care of.
So, who amongst these would I have married for money? Uloma stood out
because she’s shared my pain even when it was because of me and that
explains why it was a difficult task telling her Lillian was still in my
tracks.

I couldn’t have deliberately gone out of my way to hurt Uloma,
because that will be simply committing suicide. Hurting Uloma is like
waging war against a nation. Is it her legion of admirers I will have to
contend with or her nation of die-hard lovers who will be tumbling over
each other to get a pound of flesh?
I wouldn’t give hurt for the love and hope Uloma and her family gave
me. Unfortunately the same scandals I thought I was preventing by not
doing what everyone is saying I would have done is now the same thing
staring me in the face, and everyone is worse hurt.

And above all, my own life is now seriously at risk because I feared
hurting anyone. I ask all concerned to please sheathe their swords of
anger and find it in their hearts to forgive me. I will make restitution
as much as the mercy of God permits me. It’s never too late to begin
again as far as God keeps us all alive.

I’m a man on a mission for a peaceful marriage, a good home and
family life. I guess my desperation took good reasoning off me. Again, I
am humbly and truly sorry. I thank my friends who have stood by me
through this trial. Your comforting words are like lights on my dark
path.
And for the judgmental few, I urge you; work with the truth while the Almighty fixes that which went wrong in my life.

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Thought For Today

If you work hard, give it time, and don't give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream... all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.